Book description
It's 1953, and Luis Cabrillo has burned through the small fortune he
earned from both British and German Intelligence in WW2. Now he has only
his wits, his confidence, and his dazzling skills at lying and cheating
to rely on. Teaming up with Julie Conroy (a corker of a New Yorker), he
follows his wartime instincts and goes where arrogance breeds wealth: to
Washington D. C. and Senator Joe McCarthy, high priest of America's holy
war on Red treachery. Joe's problem is a sudden shortage of treachery.
Luis can help him out, but for dollars. Big dollars. And when the C.
I.A. gets into the act, followed by the K. G.B., F. B.I., M. I.6. and
the Mafia, it makes for an explosive mixture ripe for a spark. In Red
Rag Blues Derek Robinson lends his signature wit to the hysteria and
paranoia of the McCarthy years, toying with the notion that the world's
most powerful nation is occasionally its most stupid. "His
dialogue is beyond compare - he hits the ground wisecracking on the
first page" Mike Petty, Observer Derek Robinson, the son of a
policeman, read history at Cambridge before working in advertising in
London and New York. His novel Goshawk Squadron was shortlisted for the
Booker Prize in 1973.
